isaac-deutscher-the-prophet-armed-trotsky-1879-1921

TROTSKY IN I 905 139
rod, 'to the propaganda of a fairly risky idea, without any
counter criticism on our part.' 1 On the contributor's list were
the great names of European socialism: Victor Adler, August
Bebe!, Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring, Klara
Zctkin; and it was Trotsky's sweet revenge to open the columns
of Nachalo to Plekhanov, who had only the year before found it
'morally repugnant' to be Trotsky's neighbour in Iskra. Trotsky's
papers were much more successful than the Bolshevik Novaya
Zhizn, edited by Lenin, Gorky, Lunacharsky, and Bogdanov.
This is not surprising to anybody who looks through the files
and compares them-Trotsky's dailies had far greater verve
and pungency. 2 For all their journalistic rivalry, the papers
supported one another politically and jointly backed the
Soviet.
This flowering of plebeian freedom, with the Soviet and the
Socialist parties and press working in the open, was soon to be
nipped. The government succeeded in putting down sporadic
revolts in the army. The working class began partly to succumb
to attrition, and partly to be carried away by eagerness to take
up arms. Count Witte reimposed press censorship. The Soviet
resisted. 'Defend the free word!' Trotsky appealed. 'To the
workers the free word is bread and air. The government fears
it as one fears a sharp-edged knifc.' 3 The next blow fell on the
Soviet itself. On 22 November, Khrustalcv-Nosar and a few
other leaders were arrested. The government waited to see what
the Soviet would do. Once again the Soviet was faced with the
familiar dilemma. The Social Revolutionaries pressed for reprisals
against the Tsar's ministers. Others preferred to retort by
a general strike. The Social Democrats were on principle opposed
to terroristic reprisals; and they were wary of calling another
general strike. Once again it fell to the exuberant Trotsky to
plead for cool-headedness and for a further postponement of
J Piwia Axrlroda i ,\fmtn:·a, pp. 14:,--6.
2
Lenin himsdf later acknowledged this. In f\1ay I ~JI 7, ,.\'("11 lu:fore Trotsky
joined the Bolshevik party, he proposed that Trotsky be appointed Editor-in-Chief
of the Bolshevik popular daily; and he recalled the excellent quality of Trotsky's
Russian Gazette in 1905. Lenin's proposal was, however, rejected. Kras11nya utopis,
no. 3 (14), 1923.
3 Rwskaya Ga.1;,eta, 17 November I9fJ5; L. Trotsky, Sochinmya, vol. ii, book 2,
pp. 301-3.